Fitcher's Apprentice
by SoA
Summary: While apprentices are mysteriously disappearing from the Dantooine Jedi Enclave, three Padawans, Alek Squinquargesimus, Atris, and the future Jedi Exile Bryony Thuvell, take it into their own hands to get to the bottom of the kidnappings.


**Fitcher's Apprentice**

_2009 Dare Challenge_

I hovered in the Enclave's lightsaber practice arena, sending sporadic bolts of harmless laser fire at the padawan before me: a pale human female with white hair; Atris. Not far off, two other humans sparred: a tall male with bushy black hair by the name of Alek, and a petite dark-haired female called Bryony Thuvell.

"This is ridiculous," Alek complained, "How long can the masters keep from us what's really going on?"

"It might be too dangerous for padawans like us to know," Bryony suggested.

"The masters always know best," Atris agreed, missing my laser bolt.

"You can say that, but I still want to know," the male retorted.

"Though, I can't help but think," Bryony said, backing away from Alek, "There's got to be some way we can help. With apprentices disappearing—"

Suddenly, an unkempt Jedi apprentice skidded into the room. "Where's Master Vandar?" he panted.

"He's in a council meeting," Bryony replied soothingly, "Can it wait?"

"Sh—Shad!" he stammered, "Shad's gone too! This morning, he went out and didn't come back."

"Woh, slow down Carrick," Alek said, then eyed Bryony, "We might be able to help. Where was he going in the first place?"

"Down to the stream, I think," the boy, Zanye Carrick, replied. "That's where Kamlin was when she disappeared," he added a moment later.

"Alek, I see that look in your eyes," Atris observed, "What's your plan?"

"Carrick, go wait for the masters outside the council chamber," Alek advised. Zayne nodded, looking pale, and scurried off. "We may be able to get to the bottom of this in a way the masters can't," Alek began, "Bryony, do you really want to help those apprentices?"

"Of course," she replied.

"You're the youngest and smallest of us," Alek explained, "You could go to the stream and pretend to be an apprentice. Whatever it is isn't daring enough to take an older Jedi, but you could fool it by leaving your lightsaber and untying your padawan braid."

"I couldn't lose my braid," Bryony responded indignantly.

"Fine, hide it then," he replied, throwing his hands up defensively.

"I'd be more prepared than any apprentice," Bryony said hesitantly.

"But what if it's a trap and she is injured?" Atris argued, "An unconscious padawan is just as defenseless as an unconscious apprentice."

"We'd have to track her somehow," Alek suggested, "But putting a tracker right on her would be too obvious."

I whizzed down closer to the group and bobbed up and down in the air.

"Hey!" Bryony exclaimed, "I think this remote could help. The enclave already tracks all the remotes to keep them from wandering off, and he's small enough to sneak around and follow me."

"Good thinking," Alek praised, "And thanks," he studied my identification letter, "Cresh. Now we have a plan."

"I'm still not convinced that Bryony is going to be safe," Atris argued.

"Safety isn't the question," Bryony argued calmly, "locatablily is. Alek is right, whatever this is is afraid of anyone with a lightsaber. I'm sure the masters will have a hard time finding it if it stays in hiding when they're about. With this remote shadowing me, I'll do it."

"Bryony," Atris pleaded as Bryony passed her her lightsaber.

"We just need to make sure the masters don't find out," Kiris laughed.

Bryony Thuvell, with her padawan braid hidden in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, lazily played in the water of the stream. Soon, old man wearing a gray hooded cloak approached her. Hovering not far away, I couldn't see his face, but my sensors registered his voice, "Thank goodness! Perhaps you can help me."

"With what?" Bryony asked innocently.

Suddenly, her face paled and she cringed violently, as if struggling against bonds my sensors could not pick up. Then her limbs relaxed to the point of limpness and she followed after the cloaked man, away from the Academy. The female stared straight ahead as she walked.

As instructed, I followed at the discreet distance of twenty meters. The man led Bryony away from the settlement and out into the open grasslands.

Following the humans, I passed around the ruins of a dark stone building, and in its shadow I detected a small two-story dwelling. Instead of recklessly following them through the front door, I fired up my repulsorlifts and zipped in through an open window on the second floor. Settling inconspicuously atop a set of shelves in what appeared to be a bedroom and waited.

Soon, the man and Bryony ascended the stairs. Standing on the landing just outside the open doorway, the man said, "And here is your room. I need to go out again, but while I am gone, you must not enter my study." He rested his hand on the doorknob of the door across the landing.

"Yes Master Fitcher, I understand," Bryony nodded. Her vocal pitch and cadence suggest that she was unharmed.

"Please, make yourself at home while I am gone," he said and turned back down the stairs. Bryony cautiously entered the bedroom as he went and sat on the edge of the bed. The door slammed shut down below and the young padawan finally relaxed. "He's gone," she murmured.

Now clear, I hovered down off the shelf.

"Cresh, you made it," she exclaimed, relieved. She stood and paced about the room, "That man, Ak'ran Fitcher, he's a dark Jedi. This is more dangerous than I thought. When the masters find out what we've—"

Suddenly, she straightened up and hurried to the door of the study. Pressing her hands against it, she spoke so softly that I had to amplify my auditory sensors, "They're in there. The missing apprentices. They're still alive, if barely."

Bryony put her hands on the doorknob but quickly backed away. "This lock system looks like the kind with an alarm mechanism. I don't know enough security to get around that," she sighed and paced back into the bedroom. "There has to be a way," she said and gazed up at the ceiling.

Noticing an air vent above the bed, I hovered up towards it and experimentally tapped up against it. It was wider than my own casing.

"Cresh! That's brilliant!" she exclaimed. Bryony extended her hand towards the vent and closed her eyes. The screws at each corner slowly twisted and fell down onto the mattress. The metal grate careened onto me then to the bed.

"Sorry," she giggled, but I failed to see the humor. "See if you can get into the study through the ventilation system."

Floating up into the open vent, I navigated the air ducts until I came upon another grate. I surveyed the room through the grate. In the dim room below, there were four young sentients. Two human males and one faleen female lay sprawled on the floor while a third human male, the smallest of the children by far, sat alone in the corner. Meditating. Taking a holo capture, I returned to Bryony and projected it to her.

At first, she seemed excited at my discovery then squinted thoughtfully. "Something happened to them; they hardly seemed alive when I sensed them, but that youngling seems to be conscious. Cresh, can you record something for me to show to him?"

I bobbed up and down in the air, imitating a human nod. Immediately, she began to speak, giving me little time to reset my holo-recorder. When she finished, I returned to the grate above the study.

The young blond boy still sat motionless in the corner, oblivious to my presence. I tapped against the grate several times, until he finally looked up and gasped quietly. I aligned my projecting lens with a gap in the grate and played Bryony's message:

"I am Padawan Bryony Thuvell, and I'm here to get you out. I was tracked here, so help from the enclave should arrive soon. What happened to all of you? Fitcher has been kind to me so far, but anything helpful you know would be appreciated."

The boy's mouth hung open, and the faleen stirred.

He weakly struggled to his feet and stood directly below me. Hesitantly he began, "I'm Mical. Master Fitcher made me come here by Force control. He was nice until I tried to get into this room after he told me not to. He attacked me. He took my strength away. I think it was the same for the other too. I've been trying to heal them a little bit, but he keeps coming back and doing it again. I think it makes him more powerful," Mical paused, "I think he's looking for an apprentice." He looked down at the floor, having no more to say, so I returned to Bryony and relayed his message.

Just then, I heard the crash of a metal grate contacting with the floor coming from the other room.

"He's pulled the grate off," Bryony observed. "Cresh, go see if there are any other ways to get them out of there. Maybe the door can be opened from the inside or there's a covered window, or something like that."

I zipped up through the opening in the ceiling again and down into the darkened room. Without another holo to show Mical, I went about my business while he watched warily.

The door was as securely locked from the inside as from the hall and the walls were all plain and windowless. As I hovered back up towards the duct, the young human asked, "Can you help me get up there? I think I can fit."

The weight of the boy would not be enough to exhaust my repulsorlifts, so I acquiesced and hovered low enough for him to grab a hold of me. I slowly lifted him up off the floor and eased inside then pulled him along the narrow ducts. Although it was tight, Mical did not make a sound. As we reached the other end, Bryony scrambled onto the bed below us. Mical released me and fell down into Bryony's arms, who fell back onto the bed, too small to support his sudden weight.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He nodded tentatively.

"How does it look for other ways out?" Bryony asked me, but the boy responded before I could present my findings.

"The door is locked from the outside and there aren't any windows," he said quietly.

"I wonder…" Bryony began, "The roof here is flat with a lip around the outside edge. If only I had my lightsaber…"

Hearing voices outside, I hovered over to the window, then bounced in the air to get Bryony's attention. Alek and Atris crouched in the grass below. As soon as Bryony reached the window, Atris called, "Bryony! Are you okay?"

"The masters are coming," Alek added.

"I'm fine," she replied, "I found—" she cut short at the sound of the front door opening. "Mical, jump down and Alek will catch you," she said, hoisting him up to the windowsill.

Without a word, the boy jumped. I retreated to the shelf. Meanwhile, Atris held up a lightsaber. Bryony retrieved it with the force and stowed it under the mattress then hastily returned the air duct grate to its rightful place just as Fitcher opened the door.

"Well done, I see you have passed the obedience test," he said. There was a gray robe in his arms, "You shall become my apprentice."

"Yes, Master Fitcher," Bryony answered, and he handed her the robe. Putting it on, she asked, "What about a lightsaber?"

"Ah, I had forgotten," he replied slowly, "I will go the kinrath cave in search of crystals. You should meditate in my absence."

"Yes sir," Bryony said and obediently sat down on the bed to meditate. As front door slammed, Bryony jumped up from the bed and took off the robe.

"Cresh, come down here," she ordered, "You're going to be me for a while."

I obliged. _How can I become Bryony?_ She dropped the hood of the gray robe over me, the weight of which forced me to sag mid-air. _The robe is my disguise_.

Retrieving her lightsaber, she said, "Hover around the room at my height. I'm going up on the roof to cut a way out for those apprentices." She quickly swung out the window and onto the roof. Her footsteps were barely audible, but there was no mistaking the sound of her lightsaber slicing through the ceiling of the study.

Out the window, I glimpsed three more Jedi crouching in the grass: Masters Vandar, Vrook, and Kavar.

Just then, the front door opened again. I heard Fitcher's voice, "I had forgotten, I have a crystal already in my study."

My memory raced. _Fitcher told her not to enter the study. The study is where the apprentices were. Bryony had just cut a hole through the ceiling of the study._ I shot a warning bolt through the open window then surged through the door out onto the landing, firing my mostly-harmless lasers at Fitcher. He yelped and staggered down a few stairs.

The front door slammed open against the wall as the Jedi Masters rushed inside, lightsabers blazing. They charged up the stairs. Instantly, Fitcher had his own lightsaber drawn and fought against Kavar.

"Ak'ren Fitcher," Vrook said disapprovingly, "We cast you out of the Order years ago."

"For what?" Fitcher shrieked, "Enjoying power? There is no wrong in that. Now I have access to more power than you could dream of. Where is my apprentice?"

With a sizzling slice, the study door fell off its hinges. Silhouetted against the bright daylight, Bryony stood at the ready. I shook off the cloak and hovered out of her way.

"Bryony!" Kavar exclaimed.

"My apprentice!" he gaped, "Attack them!"

"I cannot abandon the Jedi code," Bryony said, "the apprentices are gone, and you are cornered."

With a yell, he lunged wildly at her. _Bryony's defensive stance is good, but Fitcher will easily overpower her with size and strength._ I resumed firing laserbolts. As one struck his wrist, he dropped his lightsaber. The Master Vandar caught it, leaving dark Jedi unarmed.

Trapped between Bryony and the masters, Fitcher hissed, "Kill me."

"No," Master Vrook said firmly, "You will stand trial before the Jedi Council on Coruscant for your crimes."

"But I am Sith!" he shrieked.

Vandar shook his head, "Now come." Vrook and Vandar led Fitcher out of the cottage. I spotted the padawans following after them, each supporting two apprentices.

"Master," Bryony exclaimed and rushed over towards Kavar, who embraced her. "Thank you for coming."

"You did well, my padawan," He said, releasing her. "You did what we could not."

"I couldn't have done it without this remote," she said, looking at the floor. I hovered down beside her.

"A brave remote?" Kavar said, raising an eyebrow, "We will shine you up as a reward." He turned to Bryony, "But don't ever disobey the council again. You scared me, disappearing like that."

Bryony nodded, "I promise, Master."


End file.
